For Now
by TributePotterhead
Summary: When Toph and Sokka are ambushed, Sokka loses mobility in his legs. This poses a lot of problems, especially considering their best friend status.


Heartache Chapter One:

For Now

Her thin shoulders were racked with dry sobs and hunched over the warrior's lifeless frame. His strong eyes were closed; it was almost easier to imagine that he was sleeping. Toph knew this wasn't true, however. Sokka was probably not coming back, and she would just have to find a way to deal with it.

The tears that had been choking back Toph's voice threatened—and eventually did—to spill over onto Sokka's chest. _I can't believe this is happening._ She thought to herself. The tears in her blind eyes caused the clouded grey orbs to sparkle. Toph felt like she couldn't breathe.

_The leaves from the surrounding trees seemed to shake with knowing fear. The rebels who took cover inside them smiled. They were falling right into their trap. Before Sokka could pull Toph behind him, the band of at least ten rebels jumped from the trees and began their full blown attack on the powerful duo._

_Toph knocked a couple of heads together whilst the unmatched warrior tried to keep up with the rebels who were attacking him. He basically had no chance against their hot attacks of impressive Firebending. Soon, Sokka suffered an attack from the leader of the pack, a knife to the lower back. He was soon slipping away._

"_Sokka! Sokka!" The mangled cry barely escaped Toph's throat before she took a protective stance in front of the warrior's body. She summoned great mounds of earth and threw them at the attackers. They soon shook with fear and retreated into the woods._

_She was pissed. Big time. _

_Without a second thought, she ran to his mangled body. Blood rushed from the large gash in Sokka's side. "Sokka! Don't leave me buddy. Don't leave me." Toph said through the tears she could no longer fight. She couldn't think of a way to keep his eyes open._

_Suddenly, she had an idea. Kneeling on the ground—still warm from the previous fight—Toph pressed her lips urgently against Sokka's. This made his blue eyes pop open. Sadly, Sokka couldn't find enough breath to kiss her back. Toph got the wrong idea. She thought that he didn't want to kiss her. She leaned back onto her heels, sobbing. Her loud sobs reverberated off of the tree trunks. Someone was bound to hear them sooner or later._

"_Sokka, don't you __**dare**__ close your eyes. I can't lose you. I won't lose you." Toph said, through the tears. _

_Within seconds of Toph leaning back on her heels, she was running on autopilot. She ripped strips of Sokka's bloody shirt and tied them together to form one long bandage. She wrapped it around Sokka's abdomen and applied the appropriate amount of pressure to stop the bleeding. Tears sprayed from her eyes and made the remnants of Sokka's shirt damp._

_Shortly after wrapping the bandage, Toph heard footsteps. Without a second thought, Toph kept her hands applying pressure to Sokka's wound but used her feet to create a tent made solely of earth to protect the warrior's body. Soon the figures of Aang and Katara materialized from the trees._

"_What's going on here?!" Aang screeched with alarm._

_Toph swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. "Sokka got hurt."_

"_Oh…what happened?" Aang asked at the same time as Katara ordered Toph to put the walls of the earthen tent down so she could see Sokka's injuries. Toph could see his eyes had closed._

_Katara set to work, swirling water in and out of Sokka's wounds, this made him—and Toph—tense. Finally Sokka's cobalt eyes slowly opened. Toph exhaled all the worry, all the grief, that had been piling up on her shoulders and building up in her lungs._

_Sokka looked horrified. He must have realized he had neither feeling, nor motor control of the lower half of his body. At first, he tried to convince himself it was all a very bad dream, by slapping himself in the face. When this failed, he threw his hands up in frustration. "Why!? Why couldn't you heal me Katara?!" Anger had begun to pile into his voice._

"_I'm sorry, I tried." Katara said softly._

_Sokka sat up, feeling sharp pain in his stomach. "Well I'm sorry if I'm a little upset about this! I can't exactly provide for you, Aang, Toph, or my future wife because I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not a bender."_

"_Sokka, come on. You'll figure something out. You're the plan guy so you'll have a plan." Katara said, sinking into Aang's arms._

_Sokka sighed in defeat. "Well I don't have a plan. I doubt anyone would wanna help—much less marry—a cripple." This squashed Toph's heart, she was still going to love him all the same. "Besides, I don't want to be somebody's charity case." If Toph's heart wasn't completely flattened before the last remark, it certainly was after it._

"_I was going to help you." Toph muttered under her breath. Thankfully—to Toph—no one heard._

_Aang lifted a mound of earth and hollowed sections out of it until it took the form of a wheelchair. Toph and Katara took Sokka's arms and lifted him to his feet and into the chair._

Sokka was at it again. He sat in his chair next to Toph, pouting. It broke Toph's heart to see how devastated and defeated he was about the loss of use in his legs.

"Sokka, what do you look like?" Toph asked, innocently.

Sokka didn't even hesitate. "You can find out." He said, grabbing Toph's hand and pulling it to his strongly chiseled features. Sokka let her run her callused fingers over his features, multiple times, to memorize them.

Toph sent her fingers straight to Sokka's closed eyes. "What color are your eyes?"

Again, Sokka didn't hesitate. "Blue. But that doesn't make much sense to you, does it? Blue is cool and refreshing, like water. Have you ever been far into the ocean where it's deep?" Toph shook her head. "No I suppose not. Well my eyes are kinda like that. Deep and dark. Yue said they were beautiful. Suki says that too."

Toph smiled before running her fingers over Sokka's features once again. Thick eyebrows. High, flat cheekbones. A broad forehead. Full lips. A square jaw. The scruffy beginnings of facial hair. A strong hairline. Moderately sized ears. Earlobe length hair.

Toph returned her fingers to Sokka's eyes, running them across his thick lashes in thought. "Sokka, do you know how much this means to me?"

Sokka was confused, his vibrations indicated it. "How much what means to you?"

"You being my eyes. It means the world to me." She answered.

Sokka shrugged his shoulders. "I'll be your eyes anytime." He said, almost nonchalantly.

"My life is _over_." Sokka whined.

Toph was growing tired of this. "Snoozles! Don't be such a drama queen. We'll make it through this."

"If making it through means just finding a way to cope with this dilemma, then I'm not interested." Sokka snapped grumpily.

"And if making it through means finding a way to get you your legs back?" Toph said, hurt in her voice. "PS you don't have the market on not having something."

Sokka sighed. "Yes, but you were _born_ blind. You don't know what you're missing." He said, irritation in his voice.

This was just enough to make Toph explode. "I wasn't talking about that! I was talking about my parents! They were on my side once, but now they won't even talk to me. And I'm putting up with their crap for you. I might as well just leave!" Toph screamed just before she stormed out of the room, tears welling in her blind eyes.

She didn't stop. She didn't even look back. Her bare feet slapped the marble floor of the manor she grew up in all the way to the back lot. Toph ran straight out to her garden, passing colorful tapestries and stone walls on the way.

Once in the garden, she walked toward a porch swing and plopped down in anger at both herself and her best friend. Before long, Toph heard footsteps and a low grinding sound she couldn't place. Whoever—whatever—it was, Toph didn't want to talk much less be in the same proximity as someone else.

Katara wheeled Sokka right up next to Toph and walked away. "Toph," Sokka said. Toph walked right past him, fighting back tears. "Toph!" Sokka screamed, frantically turning the wheels of his chair to reach her. "Toph come back!"

"Why should I? I don't really want to talk. Especially not to you." Toph said harshly.

Sokka sank into his chair in defeat. "I just thought you might need me to be your eyes." He said lamely.

"I've lived fifteen years without eyes; I think I can manage without them. Besides, I may be blind but I can see much more than you think."

Sokka swallowed the lump in his throat. "Well I wanted to apologize."

"I just don't know if I'm ready to forgive you yet." Toph replied.

Sokka didn't reply for a moment. "That hurts Toph."

This made Toph furious. "Do you honestly think what you said earlier didn't hurt me? News flash, it did!" Toph said. She walked away with stiff, angry steps. Sokka mentally slapped himself. What had he done?

Katara was sick of it. All the bickering. She just couldn't take it anymore. She was tired of Sokka's complaints of his life being 'over'. But most of all, she was sick of hearing Sokka cry himself asleep with heartache. When she confronted him about it, he said he was still upset about the whole leg thing but Katara just wasn't convinced. She thought she had heard him say Toph's name through the tears.

It had gone on like this for weeks. Bantering back and forth, complaining, but most of all, completely ignoring each other. Even Aang, the passive aggressive one, was at the end of his fuse. Sokka had sent Aang to give Toph messages for days. Katara and Aang had to think of something to get Toph talking Sokka again.

"He's leaving. Do you really want him to leave without saying goodbye?" The Airbender informed Toph.

Toph rubbed the back of her neck. "No but—"

"But nothing. Go talk to him." Aang interrupted.

Worry entered Toph's voice. "What if he doesn't want to talk to me?"

"He will, just go." Aang said, playfully pushing Toph towards the manor.

Toph was still unsure about it but decided to go anyway. It had been at least two weeks since she had talked to her best friend. The corridors seemed to be a labyrinth before Sokka's door. After what seemed to be an eon, Toph reached the door. Turning the knob, she couldn't help the butterflies that took flight in her stomach.

"Hi." She said, meekly walking into the room.

Sokka turned his head to see her. "Hi." The scene was just a little too awkward for best friends.

Toph laughed. "This is super awkward. It's been too long since we've talked."

Sokka let out a laugh, Toph had missed that. She loved every minute of it. "Yeah. So what's up?"

"I was just worried you wouldn't want to talk to me." Toph said with a small laugh.

Sokka was shocked. "What me? Never! I was worried you hated me."

Toph chuckled. "Yeah…um I could never hate you. Honestly, I thought of you every night before going to sleep."

"Hey me too!" Sokka said. The pair laughed like the old friends they were. "This feels good." Sokka said mysteriously.

"What do you mean?" Toph asked.

Sokka thought a moment. "Well it's been like two weeks—probably more—since we've talked and it just feels good to talk to you again." Sokka finally answered.

"Oh." Toph said. "So how much of that day do you remember?"

Sokka swallowed. "I remember that I got hit, then I fell. I don't really remember much after that." Sokka lied.

"Okay." Toph said, relieved.

Katara entered Sokka's room where he sat alone. She went to his side to change his wrappings. She made cordial conversation. "So how much do you remember…you know from that day?"

"Katara, you know me. I have remembered every day of my life since Mom died. I remember every minute of it and it stills scares the dickens out of me." Sokka said softly.

"So you _lied_ to Toph?" Katara asked.

Sokka sighed. "Not _lied_ per se, more like morphing the truth. Not telling all of it, really."

Katara slapped her brother. She couldn't believe he had sunk to that level. Sokka used to be the honest warrior from the Southern Water Tribe. He was not that anymore. Katara was shell-shocked: she had thought Sokka would never change from the goofy kid he once was.

"I'm going to tell Toph." Katara said, getting up to leave.

Sokka lifted a hand and touched Katara's forearm. "Wait. I want to tell her."

Katara nodded, walking out of the room. "What am I going to do?" Sokka asked himself. "She'll beat me senseless if she finds out I lied to her—not to mention that I like her. What am I going to do?"

Just then, Toph entered the room to talk to him. "Hey Snoozles."

"Hey." Sokka said, absent mindedly.

"Hey what's going on?" Toph said, sitting on the edge of his bed.

Sokka was silent a moment. "Well do you remember when I said I didn't remember much of that night?" Toph nodded. "Well, I have remembered every day of my life since my mom died."

"What are you saying?"

"I guess I'm saying that I lied to you." Sokka said softly.

Toph raised her fist to punch him but decided against it. "So you remember when I…"

"Kissed me?" Sokka finished. "Yes, I do."

Toph swallowed loudly. "So did it bother you?"

"Yes." Sokka said, Toph's heart sank into her toes.

"Oh so you—"

"Loved every minute of it." Sokka interrupted.

Toph was confused. "Then why did it bother you?"

"Toph, Toph, Toph, it bothered me because I've wanted to do this for a month." Sokka answered, grabbing her face and pulling her lips toward his. Raw emotions flooded their bodies. Passion. Relief. Love. This kiss was a representation of their love for one another. The one that had been kindled since they day they first saw one another.

Katara looked at Aang in the hall. Were they really kissing? Aang held up his finger. His nose twitched just before he let out the loudest sneeze Toph had ever heard. Sokka and Toph instantly peeled apart from one another. Someone was eavesdropping on them and they knew just who it was. Katara and Aang.

"Sugar Queen, wanna come here a minute?" Toph asked sweetly.

Katara had no choice to comply. Shooting Sokka a look, she walked toward her friend. "Yes Toph?"

"I just have one question. Why. Were. You. Eavesdropping. On. Us?" she growled.

Katara rubbed the back of her neck. "Um…um…I…um…I was just walking past and I was just taking a peek."

"Whatever. Can you give us some privacy please?" Toph said, rolling her blind eyes.

Katara backed out of the room. Sokka looked at Toph and raised his eyebrows, let them down quickly again. Toph laughed. Sokka was and always would be a goof ball, especially now that the heartache was gone. At least for now.


End file.
